Gawker: valleywag, flux

With plans for Flux, MTV dreams of restored relevancy

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:40:00 EDT

Viacom subsidiary MTV Networks acquired the rest of software company Social Project, which runs Flux, a platform for social networks. Flux links together sites and gives them social features like messaging and video sharing. MTV already owned a large stake in the company and had 35 sites on the platform. MTV plans to turn Flux into an ad network because "the Web is fragmented,” says Mika Salmi, MTV's president of global digital media. “People are attracted to niches. We have a history in the cable business of going after niches.” True enough: Online, MTV has a history of turning what should be successful, mainstream ventures into mere niches.

5 questions Viacom doesn't want Valleywag to ask Philippe Dauman

Owen Thomas — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:20:00 EDT

Touchy Viacom flack Jeremy Zweig called Valleywag up to let us know personally that we'd been disinvited from next week's press-only screening of Tropic Thunder. Such a pity! Because we had a list of questions we were going to ask Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman:

Does the fact that you're screening Tropic Thunder for a bunch of local tech reporters rather than the usual film critics suggest that you're not particularly confident in the film's critical reception?
How will the lost $450 million financing deal for a slate of movies that would have included Tropic Thunder affect your Paramount movie studio?
Why do you keep making poor Jeremy Zweig tell reporters that your lawyers didn't ask for YouTube users' personal information when you did, in fact, ask for their usernames and IP addresses — information most Internet users would consider personal? And what's he supposed to say now that you've agreed to mask them?
Isn't Viacom's investment in social network Flux at best an irrelevancy and at worst a mess?
Why is Viacom's MTV, after 13 years of trying, incapable of running an online music service anyone wants to use?

Does MTV channel's failure signal trouble for Current?

Mary Jane Irwin — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:30:50 EST

Barely a year after its launch, MTV is shutting down Flux TV. The U.K. channel was the network's attempt to bring social media to the telly. Users determined which music videos the channel would broadcast, as well as upload their own media. But alas, the audience, used to sitting back and being fed entertainment, didn't care to lean forward. Which brings us to Current, the San Francisco-based cable channel founded by Joel Hyatt and Al Gore.

Current has certainly been met with a lot of acclaim, but it's also entirely dependent on users (and journalism students) remaining interested in the project. If something as everyman as music videos couldn't command a younger generation's attention, will Current maintain a steady stream of fresh content — and viewers?

Viacom throws social networks into Flux

Mary Jane Irwin — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:37:48 EDT

Unable to match the pure social power of MySpace or Facebook — no matter how many Virtual Laguna Beaches it launches — Viacom is taking the next leap in the networking frontier. Instead of hosting, it's getting all Matrixy and becoming the network. Its Flux platform is sort of like Microsoft's PassPort or Google Checkout — a universal profile and set of user features that will appear across Viacom's sites and any interested third parties. A smarter move considering we're all sick of remembering multiple logins, but when will we finally reach social network saturation?